


midnight whisperings.

by katarama



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Brief mentions of a seriously ill family member, Canon Compliant, Closeted Character, Future Fic, M/M, Past Drug Addiction, Past Drug Overdose, Past Drug Use, Past Relationship(s), Polyamory Negotiations, Reunions, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 03:54:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9366893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: Jack feels places in his bones.  He always has, before he had a camera in his hands to crystallize moments, to try to capture some small measure of what a place means on film.  He doesn’t know how else to process places than to remember them as layers of feelings and sensations built up over time.But making sense of how Kent Parson feels is a complicated process.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dexsnursey (nerdy_farm_girl)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdy_farm_girl/gifts).



> For the prompt: [Pimms + I have loved since you. But when the new paint gets scratched, there you are underneath. (My heart is layers of scar.)](http://sleepy-skittles.tumblr.com/post/155287327552/50-a-softer-world-prompts)
> 
> Thank you so so so much to [the wonderful Beth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdy_farm_girl/pseuds/dexsnursey) who reassured me this was worth finishing during my halfway done meltdown.

Jack feels places in his bones.  

He always has, before he had a camera in his hands to crystallize moments, to try to capture some small measure of what a place means on film.  He doesn’t know how else to process places than to remember them as layers of feelings and sensations built up over time.

Home is the sharp dry cold of the early winter morning countered by his heavy down comforter, is the smell of the scented plug-ins his mother unsubtly started installing in his bathroom when he first started playing hockey.  Home is his father’s old jerseys hanging loose around his mother’s figure as she and Jack sank into the couch to watch TV late at night, is the quiet knock on his bedroom door when his father came in early enough after a home game to kiss Jack goodnight.  Home is Timbits runs after skating with his dad on the frozen pond behind their house, is the comforting rhythm of French when his chest aches and when his hands won’t still.  

Home is a trophy case half-full, the full top shelves collecting dust and the empty bottom shelves waiting for him to become what he could’ve been.  What he should’ve been.

Samwell is noisier, busier.  Samwell is the lingering stench of weed and stale booze, is the pulsing bass that shakes the floor under him as he hides from kegsters in his room with his history homework.  Samwell is the way the early morning light filters through the wall of glass windows to make the ice in Faber come alive, is the crisp, quiet click of the shutter on his mom’s old film camera.  

It’s the slow but intense realization that maybe he doesn’t have to hide - not everything from everyone, at least.  That maybe he can’t handle that kind of pressure anymore, anyway.

Samwell is the cool breeze on his face as he sits on the Haus roof with summer fading, the concerning scraping sound as he shifts his weight and the soft scratching of chalks and colored pencils on paper next to him, the quiet companionship he never knew to ask for.  It’s the 30 Rock theme song (he thinks) and mumbled orgo memorization and stoned ramblings about toxic masculinity.  It’s using way more laundry detergent and quarters than he had planned to need because _someone_  can’t keep their naked junk off Jack’s sheets.  It’s early morning Beyonce muffled by the shower curtain and the creaking of the oven and a distinctive Southern voice, the way the words never seem to come out fast enough buried under the drawl.

The Q wasn’t a place, was mostly a blur to him.  The slam of the boards and the clack of the hockey stick, the schick of his skates against the ice.  The panic and anxiety was its own place, and still is, in a way that Jack will never really ever escape, though he’s learned to loosen its grip.  The way his chest and jaw were always tight, his muscles clenching without him even noticing, making him spend an extra five minutes stretching out before a workout, or a game.  The distortion of his reflection as he faced himself down in the messy bathroom mirror, the too-loud sound of his shaky, whispered pep talks echoing off the tile in the bathroom before every game, because the fear that he was going to go out and fail himself, his team, his father, never faded.  

It was the way his hockey bag rattled when he wasn’t careful, when he didn’t position the pill bottle just right or when he forgot to stuff it full of tissues to muffle the noise.  It was the noxious aftertaste of his tablets in his mouth when he took too long to get them down, or when he took them dry.  The constant cycle of panic and dissociation and pills, panic and dissociation and more pills.  The overwhelming relief when he got one down and the anxiety intensifying when a pill or so past his prescribed level didn’t seem to be working the way he needed it to, sitting locked in his bathroom the night before the draft, the way his hands shook and he took another, and then another, and then another.

The Q, the league and the team and the rink, wasn’t what Jack felt in his bones during that time.  But it wasn’t just the anxiety and the pills, the overdose, that Jack couldn’t shake.  

It was in the Q that Jack learned not to make homes out of people.

Kent was the certainty of sending the puck loose and knowing exactly where it would go, was the security of knowing it was at the blade of a stick headed into the net.  Kent was never being alone on the ice, because there was someone with just as much drive and ambition as Jack, even if he didn’t get the reasons why Jack was pushing himself so hard, not really.  Kent was a small weight pressed against Jack’s side in the team-bonding basement parties that Jack was always too anxious to go to alone.  Was the euphoria of knowing that Jack didn’t have to be alone, at all, if he didn’t want to.  Was the squeeze of arms around him and the squeeze of Jack’s heart and wondering for the first time what the difference was between best friends and boyfriends, or even if there was one at all for him.   

Kenny was the snapback Jack twisted backwards as he leaned in for the first time to taste someone else’s mouth.  A boy’s mouth, with soft lips and teeth and a tongue that seemed to have just as little clue as Jack’s about what to do.  Kenny was the first pair of hands peeling him out of his clothes, was breath hot on his neck and was Jack getting chirped mercilessly for wearing turtlenecks under his pads the next morning to try to hide the red, mouth-shaped marks that were left behind.  Kenny was Jack’s brain quieting down, was the feeling of being totally in his body in a way nothing but hockey drills had ever accomplished for more than a few brief moments at a time, was the feeling of being dragged past the point of _does this feel good_  and _am I doing this right_.  It was the insecurity that only crept into his head after, the _am I being too obvious, is everything written on my face, does he see right through me_.  

Kenny was Oops!... I Did It Again blared from the speakers in Kenny’s bedroom of his billet family’s home to cover their noises, the rock of bedsprings and heavy breathing and choked-back moans and the steady sound of Kenny’s voice in Jack’s ear, soothing him and pushing him, challenging him.  Kenny was Jack’s heart beating out of his chest with their recklessness, was staying back an extra hour at the rink until they were sure they were alone.  Was being squeezed into a shower, was one hand on Kenny’s cock and the other covering Kenny’s puffy red mouth to muffle the noises Jack was pretty sure were intentionally loud, because even when Jack was with Kenny, even when Jack was dancing away from any words that would paint them as more than best friends, Kenny was kind of a little shit.  

Parse was everything crumbling around Jack.  Parse was the intense jealousy that soured Jack’s stomach and made him sick, was the beeping of machines in the hospital and was refusing to take any calls out of shame and frustration and anger.  Parse was the fear of relapse, was the fear of falling back into bad habits, was the fear of wanting someone so much that it was easier to pretend he never wanted at all.  

Parse was a fist in Jack’s shirt, pulling him closer, was fighting the urge to close the gap and try to bring back everything that used to make Jack feel alive.  Parse was hot words that burned Jack’s tongue as they left and was sharp words that left Jack’s chest open and bleeding.

Parse is Kenny is Kent, is written in Jack’s bones as emotions so strong that Jack can’t divorce himself from them.  From him.  From the singular Kent Parson, who Jack has felt so many things for that he has tried to break them into pieces to sort through the jumble of them.  

But that was the scary part of Kent; it was never that he _made_  Jack feel anything.  It was that the feelings were there, all along, and that they bubbled up so fast and hard and strong that they almost don’t feel real, in hindsight.  He’s tried to convince himself, in the aftermath, that maybe they weren’t.  That things only happened with Kent because Kent ran his mouth when they were both tipsy on tequila so cheap it burned like whiskey, Kent’s sticky lips pressing the words into Jack’s ear, _I like boys too_  and _I like you_ , the heat of his breath and the hush of his voice sending shivers down Jack’s spine before he could even process the words.  Or, at other times, Jack has tried to convince himself that he was only with Kent because Kent wanted to touch him, back when no one else did, when Jack was just starting to leave his awkward phase and grow into his features.  He wants, still, sometimes, to be able to boil down what happened with him and Kent to insecurity, or the intoxicating feeling of being needed, being wanted.

So it’s easy to paint over his feelings, when talking to Bitty.  Kent and Jack never used words to define what they were, so it’s easy to say that it was just hooking up a few times, that it was just physical, that the end of things was inevitable.  Because it was inevitable, from the start, and they both knew it.  They knew that the day would come when one of them would go first in the draft and the other would go second.  Jack knew that at the end of the day, he would be alone again.  Becoming a _them_  in the first place was not something either of them intended, and not something either of them would have said they wanted, and not something either of them would have said they could continue.

But Parse visited Samwell.  And he talked about Jack going to Vegas and playing on his team like it was all part of the plan.  Like them being together while playing on a professional hockey league was something feasible.  Like it was something that Jack could genuinely have, fucking his NHL teammate like there weren’t any consequences.

There are.  There would be.  Consequences.  If they were signed to the same team, trying to sneak around.  And Jack knows himself, knows how he is around Kent.  He knows that he feels things around Kent more, knows that there’s only so much he can keep from his face, from his body when it’s instinct to reach out to Kent.  It’s one thing when they’re playing against each other, but when they’re on the same team it’d be different.  He’d be fighting the constant battle not to pull Kent under his arm, or bury his face in Kent’s neck, or press his mouth to Kent’s.

Jack was so scared of losing everything all over again, of losing hockey and his teammates and his parents’ love and pride and support, that the idea of slipping and facing consequences was terrifying.

So Jack sent him away.  Parse’s words, both the desperate offer that he seemed to treat like a real possibility when it really fucking wasn’t and his lashing out when he didn’t get his way, hurt too much for Jack not to.  

When Jack sees Parse out on the ice, it does still make his chest ache.  What he says to the press isn’t entirely PR talk, though.  Playing hockey is his job, no matter who he’s playing.  He plasters on a game face and heads out there, pretending he isn’t hyperaware of where Kent is on the ice, pretending he doesn’t notice how his apparent indifference has Parse’s eyes narrowing.

He guesses he’s just going to have to get used to that, and Parse is too.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Providence should be terrifying.  It should be the fear and anxiety from his younger years amped up from the pressure of actually being in the NHL.  But there’s actually something about it that’s comforting.  Providence is falling into a steady rhythm, games and workouts and practices and meetings.  Providence is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the kitchen with post-it notes stuck to the containers.  Providence is late night Skype calls and sleepy attempts at pet names in beginning, broken French.  Providence is tuning out the noise from the crowds in the stands and calming himself with deep breathing and with texts from his boyfriend, his old team.  Providence is loud, boisterous Russian and family dinners with his teammates and keeping pace with the assistant GM, the knots in his stomach unclenching when he hears that he’ll be supported by management if he decides to be more open with his teammates.  

Providence is kissing his boyfriend’s rumpled blonde hair and whispering _go back to sleep_  as he dresses for his morning run, knowing that when he gets back, there will be someone waiting for him.  Someone he doesn’t have to hide from his team’s management.  

It’s weird, now that he’s talked to his Samwell friends, to George, how much of a weight is lifted from his chest.  He knows he’ll be doing this for the rest of his life, assessing carefully who is worth telling - who is safe to tell.  The media isn’t included in that, at least definitely not for the time being, and he’s going to take it little by little with his team.  He knows how hockey players can be.  He’s had teammates in the past who seemed just fine talking about hockey but who started busting out slurs when they decided they were in warm company.  He’s had teammates in the past who didn’t even start out on the level of fine when talking about hockey.  He doesn’t think that will be the case here, but there’s still that lingering warning in the back of his head about the need to be careful, to protect himself and Bitty.  There aren’t any active professional hockey players out for a reason.

He wonders, as he slowly starts coming out to people who are safe, if the Falconers are unique.  His dad hinted that there were guys in his locker rooms, even back then, who were keeping it a secret from the press but not their teams.  Jack’s dad said that they were granted privacy, but he didn’t say anything about how they were treated, and Jack didn’t push.  He almost doesn’t want to know, because he suspects it would only make his anxiety feel more reasonable.  His dad played in a different era, and Jack would like to think that times are better, but he’s definitely not ready to get his hopes up yet.

He thinks a lot about the Aces.  About Parse.

He has Kent’s new number in his new phone, from the first disaster of a visit Kent paid to Samwell.  If Jack didn’t have it, he knows his mom and dad have it and use it, and they would give it to him if he needed it.  But Jack hasn’t used it, though he’s thought about it more than once.  He nearly broke down and texted the night before the Falconers played the Aces - he’d even had a messaged typed out, something about leaving personal stuff off the ice and keeping things clean - but he deleted it before he could press send.  It wasn’t what he wanted to say, and the words felt hollow even to him, like the boring bullshit everyone says to the press to keep from saying what they actually mean.

 _I miss you, too_ , or _You hurt me_ , or _I’m sorry_.

Jack can’t get the idea of texting Kent about this out of his head, though, even weeks after the game against Vegas.  Especially after his conversations with George, or Marty, or Thirdy.  So he waits, he sits on it for a long time to mull over what exactly he could say that would be safe.

“I came out to management as liking boys too,” he finally sends, “and a few of my teammates know I’m dating Bittle now.  Everyone’s been supportive.”

He doesn’t expect any sort of response.  He knows he’s not only announcing that he’s on his way out, but that he’s announcing himself as in a relationship, and that it probably stings more than Jack in his bitter moments could hope it would.  He puts his phone away to keep himself from obsessively checking it and he gets on Skype with Bitty to ease his nerves about the whole thing.

A day passes, and there’s no reply from Kent.  There’s no media hellstorm of Kent fucking him over and revenge outing him to the press, which Jack kind of knew was an intensely paranoid and primarily anxiety-driven concern, but was still in the back of his head.

But Bitty does text asking if Jack knows why Kent Parson followed him on Twitter, and if it is okay with Jack if Bitty follows him back.  Jack explains the first part, but leaves the second part up to Bitty to decide for himself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Last summer, Georgia was the light of the stars masked by the smoke and smog from the fireworks Bitty’s neighbors set off in their backyard, was kissing Bitty with Jack’s skin pressed against the metal of the bed of Coach’s truck, a warm blanket that Jack doesn’t actually need draped over their laps.  Georgia was noises that Jack wasn’t actually sure weren’t gunshots instead of fireworks.  Georgia was sitting around the dinner table with enough food to feed three professional hockey players, Bitty’s mama’s warm smiles as she asked about Samwell and about the pre-season, and Coach’s pride as he talked about his son playing hockey with someone like Jack.  Georgia was the smell of baked goods and debates about jam and Jack being introduced to what Bitty informed him was basically the entire neighborhood, because word got out that a shiny rental car was parked in the Bittles’ driveway, and apparently privacy doesn’t exist in Bitty’s part of town.

Georgia was Bitty trying really, really hard not to talk about his and Jack’s brand new relationship and Jack trying really, really hard not to tense up every time Bitty called him honey, was reminding himself that Bitty talks that way to everyone.

This summer, Georgia is less pleasant.  Georgia is bags under Bitty’s eyes, his voice shaking a little bit as he says _MooMaw’s sick_ , and _I’m staying home for the summer_ , and then

 _Maybe we should take a break_.

“No,” is Jack’s immediate answer.  Three months without seeing each other is a long time, but they did it almost that long the summer before, and Jack can come down to visit Bitty again and offer whatever help he can to the family.  

Bitty admits that he doesn’t really _want_  to take a break.  But Bitty also talks about how hard on him distance has been even when he’s up north with Jack.  He talks about having to cancel his trip up to Boston to see Jack and the team for the Fourth of July.  He almost implies it’s a money thing, even though Jack knows it isn’t, because Bitty has had those tickets booked for a month and a half, and Jack bought them as a birthday present, anyway.  Jack thinks it’s probably much more honest when Bitty talks about how much his family needs him there, about how much he needs to be there to be with his MooMaw.  Jack knows they’re close.

Jack says that he wants to do everything he can to help Bitty.  It’s the off-season, so it is easier for him to do that.  He offers to visit, to help how he can, to provide some support around the house.  Bitty doesn’t seem to like that answer as much as Jack would hope, and to some extent, Jack knows why.  Bitty may want Jack there, but it would complicate things, and Bitty’s family doesn’t need an outsider around to watch them hurting.

“I get it,” Jack admits.  “I know that after what happened in the Q I wanted some space.  I know what it’s like to need to put relationships on hold to handle things that are hard emotionally.  After the OD, with…. With my old teammates.  I needed some time away from them for a while.  If that’s what you need, we can put us on hold.  But I want to be there for you, if I can.”

“I love you, honey,” Bitty says.  He looks so soft, and Jack wants to pull him close and hug him tight and tell him everything will be okay, even if he can’t promise that for certain.  “You don’t have to pretend you don’t mean Kent Parson.”

Jack winces, and his impulse is to correct Bitty.  This is about Bitty and his MooMaw and about what he needs to get through the day.  Whether Bitty needs relationship support from Jack or friendship support from Jack, or neither, whether he just needs to be with his family in Georgia for a while without having to worry about a secret NHL boyfriend he can’t tell anyone he loves about for three long months.  

Jack wants to say that Kent in particular has nothing to do with this.  That this is broader than that, that this is about dealing with emotional stress and what he needed to process it, and is not about Jack’s old friend with benefits.  Jack wants to say that he has dealt with his Kent feelings by now, and that it doesn’t matter anyway, that he only sees him a few times per year when they face off on the ice.  

Jack wants to emphasize that if there’s any similarity to with him and Kent, that Jack is on the opposite end, this time.  Jack wants to do right by Bitty.  Jack doesn’t want to give up on Bitty.  Jack wants to be there for him when he is scared and anxious and stressed and hurting, and Jack hopes that Bitty doesn’t freeze him out.  But Jack wants Bitty to have what he needs, even if that is some space.

“I love you too.  It’s getting kind of late.  Can we sleep on it and talk about this again tomorrow?” Jack asks, instead, because it is sort of dodging Bitty’s statement, but he thinks they both need some time to process anyway.

Bitty agrees.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Cambridge is circling the block to find somewhere to park his car first thing in the morning in a city swarmed with college students.  Cambridge is the squeak of Shitty’s desk chair under Jack’s weight, is the long foregone conclusion Jack made before deciding to sit in it that Shitty’s naked ass had probably been there a trillion times.  Cambridge is the sound of bacon sizzling in the pan as Shitty cooks breakfast at 2 PM with no pants on, because he’s a law student who wears a suit to work every day during the summer, and the weekends are his only respite.  Cambridge is the smell and bubbling sound of freshly brewing coffee that Jack really shouldn’t drink but that Lardo will down almost entirely on her own as she waits at the tiny square breakfast table in Shitty’s tiny square kitchen for Jack to finally explain why he drove the hour and a half up to visit.

“We aren’t broken up,” Jack finally says.  It was the biggest relief of everything; he loves Bitty, and he knows Bitty is good for him, and he knows that even through the difficulties now, he can do his best to be good for Bitty.  “I told him that if he needs to change his mind, he should say something.”

“You should check back in on that later, brah,” Shitty says from the stove as he pokes at his bacon with a spatula.  “Bitty’s not the king of saying things when he’s feeling shitty.”

“That’s good, though?” Lardo says, looking up from her coffee to meet Jack’s eyes.  “Not breaking up is good,” she clarifies.

There’s an implication in Lardo’s words that weren’t there in Shitty’s.  Or, a question, as much of an implication.  Jack makes sure that he pops his head in around Shitty’s place more than he did first semester, but he doesn’t do casual early morning drives down to Boston every day, by any means.  A “we aren’t breaking up” conversation just as easily could have been held over the phone, or over Skype.

“We talked about Parse.  A lot.”

“Did you not have that talk before now?” Shitty asks.  

“He knew about Parse and me.  There’s just more story than I thought.”

“You start stories way at the ending and twist yourself back to the start,” Shitty says.  He sticks two pieces of bread in the world’s shiniest toaster (his dad’s primary contribution to Shitty’s appliances) and pushes them down.  “‘S how we shoulda known Bitty was head over hockey ass for you, he loved your Epikegster Número Uno story.  You tell too much story or not enough, and you didn’t really wanna tell _me_  about Kent when he showed up to the Haus and you went robot mode for like, a month.”

“I didn’t know what story to tell.”

Because Jack knows there’s a narrative there.  One that is clear and linear and would make sense based on what Bitty saw at Epikegster.  Jack meets Kent, Jack becomes best friends with Kent, Jack and Kent fuck, Jack fucks his entire life up in a heavily publicized way, Jack doesn’t call Kent back, Kent gets needy or jealous or some other choice negative adjective, Kent comes and tries to corner Jack into signing, Kent overreacts and gets nasty when Jack doesn’t say yes.  It’s an easy story.  It paints things in clear lines, with Kent as the aggressor and Jack as the victim.  It comes off as distant and detached from Jack’s side of things, as something that happened and was upsetting at the time, but can’t touch him anymore.

Jack was a history major, though, and he knows that the filter through which a story is told makes a huge difference.  He knows the easiest story isn’t always the most honest, and he knows that he’s far from objective as a narrator.  And he’s far from the lone victim here.

Shitty gives him a little bit of trouble for not spilling everything sooner, and both Shitty and Lardo are concerned about how Bitty reacted once he and Jack talked more about Parse.  Bitty got something a little bit closer to the story Shitty got when Kent came to visit the first time, when Shitty saw Jack bitter and jealous and angry (with Kent, but more with himself, because it’s easiest to blame Kent, but it’s not his fault that Jack didn’t handle his shit in a healthy way in the first place).  It’s the version of the story that Jack tells when everything is fresh, when he can’t bury it under everything else in his life and treat it like it doesn’t matter anymore.

“He wasn’t upset,” Jack tells them.  “He wasn’t even really surprised?  He was attentive and thoughtful, because he’s Bitty.  It was just a lot.  I wanted to be around people.”

“Well then you’re in the right place.”  Shitty plops down a plate of food in front of Jack and another in front of Lardo.  “You’re among bros.  We’ll even watch those US exceptionalist propaganda World War II documentaries you love.”

Shitty squishes Jack on one side, and Lardo’s hand finds Jack’s on the other.  They’re very different people, and very different forms of comfort for Jack.  He’s definitely grateful for both of them, though.

They let him stay the whole day and then overnight, and he’s grateful for that, too.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Kent is Kenny is Parse.  

The more Jack thinks about it, late at night on the couch in Shitty’s apartment, the more he knows he’s drawn lines between them at all just to make it easier on himself.  To make it seem like there was a real difference between the stages, so he could look at things and think _Parse is now and Parse hurts and Parse is bad for me_  and dismiss it all.

In Jack’s head, Kent was the way things started, before either of them had a hockey nickname.  Kent was the hair that seemed too blonde at the beginning but never showed roots to prove it.  Kent was an upstate New York boy who could fake an obnoxious Brooklyn accent with the best of them, was the intentionally bored looks whenever someone whispered about Bob Zimmermann but the nervous, fidgety hands and awed expression the moment he stepped into Jack’s house for the first time and met Jack’s dad face to face.  Kent was the dread Jack felt watching the coaches scrambling to find someone for Jack’s line who could keep up with him, and Kent’s smug face when starting lines were announced game after game and Jack and Kent were both always there together.

Kent wasn’t just hockey, though.  Kent wasn’t free of animosity and competitiveness that sometimes turned a little ugly when they were tired or sick or losing.  Kent was getting the A instead of the C pinned on Jack’s sweater, feeling a little bit of resentment that Jack knew he had to swallow, because Kent was wearing an A instead of a C too, and on any other team Kent would be the shoo-in.  Kent was Jack getting chirped within an inch of his life, and Kent’s digs sometimes maybe being less than innocuous and Jack sometimes maybe getting more than a little bit defensive.  Kent was Jack’s hands clenching into fists at his sides, was the volume of their voices rising whenever Kent played like there was no next game, taking risks that could land Kent injured, his career ruined.  That could leave Jack alone, again.  That could hurt Kent.

Kent wasn’t just being friends, either.  Kent was both of them softening after a disagreement, Kent facing Jack with earnestness and a focus that left Jack’s resentment eking out.  Kent was Jack giving a fuck, and Kent giving a fuck, and Jack to this day isn’t sure which was scarier for him.  Kent was reaching out and smoothing down that one wisp of a cowlick that never behaved, was trying to figure out whether Kent’s eyes looked greener on the ice or whether it was just being surrounded by white, or whether it was the sparkle in Kent’s eyes from doing something he loved.

Kenny was the way Jack fell into things with Kent, was constantly cursing curfew and how strictly it was enforced, to the point that even Kent couldn’t charm his way out of it.  Kenny was the quiet pulse of a heartbeat that Jack tried to match when his anxiety was too much, taking deep breaths and finding himself relaxing and calming down and dozing off with Kent’s hand loosely in his hair, their heartbeats in sync.  Kenny was Jack sneaking extra bananas from the kitchen to practice blowjobs on and feeling ridiculous about the whole thing, but also being glad when it paid off, when Jack felt Kenny’s thighs shaking under his hands and heard Kenny moaning under his tongue and tasted Kenny spilling into his mouth for the first time, knowing he made Kenny feel good.  Kenny was learning someone else’s body in a way that was entirely divorced from hockey, focusing on someone’s thighs apart from their power and speed potential, focusing on someone’s hands for more than how they handled the puck.  

But Kenny was also short, blunt fingernails not made for cutting and scratching but for clawing and clinging to Jack for dear life.  Because somehow, against all odds, Jack was the one pulling away.  Somehow, Jack was the one who left first.  Jack knows that if it were the other way around, he’d have been doing the exact same thing Kenny did, that he’d keep coming back to the first person his age he ever felt like he could be himself around, the first person he wanted with everything in him.  It would have been different if it had happened with the draft, because they were both prepared for that.

Neither of them was prepared for Jack ODing on anxiety meds and going to rehab instead of Las Vegas.

Parse was standing on the porch of the Haus and feeling 17 again, but with the feeling of his heart pounding in his chest overridden by his irrational anger with Parse’s shiny car parked out front and Parse’s shiny watch on his wrist and Parse’s snapback that Jack recognized just by its color, without even having to see the logo.  Parse was the flush on Kent’s face that was from anger instead of pleasure, a flush that Jack put there because Jack can be mean, too.  Jack isn’t immune from jealousy and never has been, and it’s a problem when he acts on it, he knows, it’s a problem when he points it at other people with his words and actions.  

But Parse was also standing next to Bitty at Epikegster and hearing that voice, _Hey, Zimms_ , the tone so viscerally familiar to Jack that he’d recognize it anywhere, insecurity or uncertainty plastered over with false bravado and casualness.  Parse was _I miss you_ , the same message that Jack had gotten to his old full keyboard phone on late nights after Aces losses, the same message Parse had said defiantly on Jack’s porch when Jack had asked if Parse was only there to gloat.  Parse was Jack’s voice hardening and regretting it after, was remembering that he isn’t the only one who can be mean when he’s wounded, and that no one knows better where his soft spots are than Parse.

But Parse was never being vindictive for the sake of being vindictive.  Or if he was, then maybe Jack didn’t know Parse as well as he thought he did.  Parse was everything that had been bubbling up the last few years coming to a head.  Not just the draft, not just who Jack was and who Parse was becoming without him.  Not just the impending separation that both of them were actually wildly unprepared for, no matter how much they claimed otherwise.  Not just jealousy and resentment and fear and loss jumbled up together, waiting to see which of them would crack first.

Parse was feeling Kenny’s hand tangled in Jack’s shirt, pulling him close and pressing against him, Jack angry because Kenny should have known that the touching Jack craved wouldn’t override the unfairness of cornering Jack.  And Parse was Jack doing the only thing he knows how to do when the feelings get to be so much he can’t squash them down, was trying to remove himself physically from the situation because he can’t get there on his own, emotionally; he can keep it off his face but not out of his voice, not out of his body.

It’s been years since the Q.  Jack goes about his life.  He works out.  He plays hockey.  He Skypes his boyfriend.  He visits his family.  He does charity work with his team.  Jack doesn’t have the time or the energy or the desire to spend every minute of the day thinking about Kent Parson.  Most days, he doesn’t think about him at all.  Most days, he thinks that Kent Parson isn’t part of his life anymore and he believes it.

But every once in a while, things creep up on him, and he’s laying on the couch at one in the morning trying to keep himself from texting his sort-of ex, the person who he never dated but who he’s pretty sure was the first person he ever loved romantically, was the first person who loved him back.  Loves him back.  Parse hasn’t said it, but Jack hasn’t let him, because if Parse said it to his face, Jack couldn't predict exactly what would come out of his mouth in reply.

Bitty seemed to think he had a pretty good idea of what Jack might say.  He seemed more worried about Jack than he seemed upset with the idea that maybe the Parse feelings were a) there, and b) not quite the closed book matter that Jack seemed to imply they were.  He didn’t seem jealous, so much, and he didn’t seem mad.  He did seem concerned, because he heard some of what was said at that Epikegster.  And he did seem certain it was something worth talking about.  He double-checked to make sure it was okay that he and Kent were following each other on Twitter.  He also seemed suddenly intensely concerned that Kent actually liked Bitty’s tweets pretty often, and that Bitty did find Kit Purrson sweet and sometimes did like some of Kent’s tweets, too.

“You don’t have to hate him because of what you heard sophomore year,” Jack reassures Bitty.  “It stung then, but I’m not upset about it anymore, most of the time.  It was Kent at his worst.  I’ve said things just as harsh to him, we… we used to be that way when we were scared.”

“You should think about talking to that boy sometime, honey,” Bitty had said, gently, at the very end, when Jack felt wrung dry from talking so much about the emotions that only really get voiced to his therapist on the worst days.  “You don’t have to.  But it might do you both some good.”

And then, Bitty leaned into tossing out the words “open relationship”, like it was a natural segue out of Jack admitting that Kent still invoked a lot of emotions.  Bitty tried rationalizing the idea with the reality of their new relationship circumstances, with the reality of Bitty staying down in Georgia the whole summer.  

Jack had to stop him before he got too carried away.

He knows that Bitty is trying to be supportive and understanding, and he knows he couldn't have a more wonderful boyfriend than Bitty.  And Jack genuinely believes that if it was something Jack agreed to, Bitty would have Parse over for dinner and bake him a pie and force awkward conversation until Jack and Kent started handling it on their own.  Jack believes that Bitty would watch Kent like a hawk to make sure he wasn’t hurting Jack, at first, but would let Jack and Kent figure things out eventually.

But Jack has spent so long thinking himself in circles about the what ifs and the missed opportunities with Kent Parson that he isn't sure how he feels when he is handed the opportunity, especially when Jack doesn't think Bitty really thought through just what he was offering.  

Jack knows better by now than to demonize himself or Parse for what happened.  They were a couple of kids who got in too deep and lost themselves and ended up hurting each other.  Jack wasn't wrong for needing space.  Kent wasn't wrong for wanting Jack still.  Jack was wrong for letting his jealousy and frustration get in the way and taking it out on Kent.  Kent was wrong for cornering Jack and throwing what he knew was one of Jack’s biggest insecurities in Jack’s face.

Jack knows that doesn't have to be the end of the story.  They are adults and professionals and they don't have to leave a legacy of being shitheads to each other.  They at the very least could soften things so Kent isn't doing stupid, reckless shit on the ice whenever they play each other.  They could at the very least be able to exchange birthday and holiday texts.

Jack remembers vividly the last time they tried to have a real conversation, though, and it didn't end too well.

So Jack texts Bitty goodnight, puts up his phone, and tries to fall asleep.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Cambridge is falling asleep easy, because he may have thoughts circling around his head, but he’s also used to going to bed much earlier than 1 AM, in the off-season.  Cambridge is also the disorientation of waking up before his alarm to a dark room on a squishy thrifted couch, his face pressed into a pillow that is distinctly not his.  Cambridge is waking up because he is a light sleeper and he swears there were just vibrations near his head.  Cambridge is dismissing it, once he remembers where he is, as probably Shitty fucking with him as payback for all the mornings Jack dragged him out of bed at the crack of dawn to walk over to Faber together and practice while the ice was free.  Cambridge is the tension in Jack’s body as he waits for Shitty to reveal himself, and, instead, him being alert enough to realize where the vibrations are coming from this time when his phone goes off from where it fell between the pillow and the couch cushion.

It vibrates again, and Jack decides that whatever it is clearly isn’t going to go away.  So he shifts, almost knocking his blanket off the couch entirely, and fishes for his phone, finding it and squinting as his eyes adjust to the light, 4:37 AM staring him down from the lockscreen.

 

Parse: zimms what did you do wrong

Parse: your boyfriend was vaguetweeting some things

Parse: since your twitter uses emojis it is probs too pr to be run by you so i’m guessing you didn’t see it

 

Jack takes a second to just stare at the texts, scrolling up to confirm that the messages are real, and that it is actually his conversation with Kent.  He scrolls back down to the bottom and sits there, for a moment, letting himself absorb that Parse has decided to end his text drought over _this_.  Letting himself absorb the fact that Parse was familiar enough with his own account that he knew Jack mostly let other people deal with it and letting himself absorb the much more pressing and much more confusing fact that Parse was reading through Bitty’s tweets at 4:30 AM.

He almost puts his phone away and sleeps the extra hour he has before he needs to pack up and start driving back to Providence.  He almost ignores Kent’s text, following the pattern they established beforehand where they mostly pretend they don’t actually have a viable form of private communication with each other.  

 

Jack: We’re fine.  Bitty’s fine.  It’s 4:30 AM.

 

Before Jack even has the time to collect himself, to take a breath and check Bitty’s Twitter to figure out what exactly had Parse so certain Jack had screwed up, Parse replies.

 

Parse: not here in vegas

Parse: only 1:30 here

Parse: wait why are you awake at 4:30

Parse: please tell me you aren’t awake to play hockey

Parse: it’s the offseason

Parse: do i need to tweetshame you

Jack: Your texts woke me up Parse

Parse: i’ve told you a zillion times to sleep with earplugs and you never listen

Jack: Kent.

Jack: Bitty has personal stuff going on and we had a talk.  We straightened everything out this morning.

 

Jack’s phone screen has time to dim and then lock before Jack gets an answer from Parse.  Jack’s feels a little bit sick to his stomach in a way he can’t solely attribute to lack of sleep.  He doesn’t know how to feel about Parse texting him.  He isn’t sure what Parse expected, there.  Bitty said that he and Kent interacted on Twitter, but Jack didn’t think they were close enough that Parse would take him to task on Bitty’s behalf.  It’s possible that Kent decided that since Jack’s last text was about Bitty, texting about Bitty was fair game.  It isn’t like Kent is the one in the equation who had a problem with reconnecting, in the first place: there were all the texts at the beginning and two physical visits to Jack’s college.  It could just be a convenient excuse to try again.

Jack can’t help the less generous thought that Kent has messaged to gloat, or to try to swoop in and do… Jack doesn’t know what.  Something selfish, maybe, because whatever Bitty tweeted may have made Parse think that Jack and Bitty were breaking up.  Jack knows that Bitty makes sure never to post identifying information that could help people realize he’s talking about Jack, but Jack also knows that Bitty tweets a lot about how he’s feeling, and Jack knows Parse has enough information to piece together who Bitty’s talking about.

If Kent were going to be smug about a break-up, though, Jack thinks he probably would’ve brought it up already, instead of fussing about Jack being a light sleeper or discussing time zones.

 

Parse: he posted something tonight too

Parse: about not getting over exes

Parse: he did a twitter q&a the other day

Parse: he said he hadn’t been in a relationship before

Jack suddenly knows why Kent decided this was something worth texting Jack about.

Jack: I’ve been in relationships since you.

Parse: with a dude?

Jack: Are you trying to devalue relationships with women?  You’re pan.

Parse: jesus zimms

Parse: how much time do you spend with that naked lawyer dude

Parse: i’m not saying that at all

Parse: your boyfriend used he pronouns in the tweet

Parse: or the tweet after it

Parse: he implied the ex was a dude

Jack: Oh.

 

Jack watches as the notification comes that Parse has seen the message.  Jack feels frozen, unsure of what to do or what to say in this situation.  He knows that it probably isn’t smart to admit that it was about Parse, that half of the day has been about Parse, that he still can’t stop circling through everything that happened with Parse and everything he feels about Parse in his head.  Kent barrels into things head-first and always has, the entire time Jack has known him, and Jack knows that this is something that can’t be rushed, something that shouldn’t be handled out of pure recklessness and impatience and want.  This is probably not a conversation to have while Jack is tired and uncertain and, more than anything, missing Kenny.

Parse takes things out of his hands.

 

Parse: i mean i figured based on the tweets it was me

Parse: but the last time we talked was at samwell  

Parse: which was not really a good look on me

Parse: desperation isn’t a good look on anyone

Parse: i’m gonna take your silence to mean it was me though

Jack: Kent.

Parse: bitty didn’t seem upset

Parse: not like the night before

Parse: he tweeted about being surprised how okay he was with it

Jack: Parse

Parse: which like

Parse: the more i read his tweets the more i realize he’s pretty chill

Parse: though i kinda wish he were a dick sometimes for like

Parse: jealous moral high ground reasons

Parse: but he seems like a good guy

Parse: though he looks a lot like me which is kinda weird dude

Jack: Kenny, stop.

 

To his credit, Kent does stop, even if it is on the uncomfortable acknowledgement that maybe Jack has a little bit of a type when it comes to boys.  There are a lot of texts all at once, though, and Jack keeps rereading them and running them through his brain.  Kent acknowledging desperation is a lot when Kent tries so hard to seem casual and chill, and it’s even more when he’s acknowledging at the same time that the way he behaved as a result wasn’t good.  Kent acknowledging being jealous of Bitty is something that Jack didn’t expect, either.  Jack wonders if Kent has spent some time in therapy since that night at Samwell, or if he has just spent half as much time as Jack going back through that night when he couldn’t sleep because his anxiety decided to play reruns in his head of some of the most unpleasant recent memories it could scrounge up.

There’s also the fact that Kent described himself as one of Jack’s exes, and that apparently Bitty did, too, which.  Jack didn’t think they were, technically.  But apparently everyone else in his life seems to want to call it that, and Jack wonders if that was something he clung to to protect himself, from the start.  Or maybe something he clung to even tighter once they were over, as a way to try and weed out as many of the roots Kenny had growing around his heart as he could.

“His MooMaw is sick,” Jack starts to type out slowly.  His palms are sweaty and his hands feel unsteady around his phone, though they aren’t shaking.  Something about the moment is inherently intense, a feeling building in his gut that his decision in this moment could change things in a way he can’t take back.  He feels overwhelmed, feels alone in the way his heart is pounding in his chest as he sits on the couch in Shitty’s living room, the way his phone is the only light casting a soft glow in the room, the way his clock on his phone says it’s 4:52 and the way that means that everyone he should be asking before he has this conversation is asleep.

 

Jack: His MooMaw is sick.  He had to cancel his trip here to visit over the summer.  He was worried about distance for so long and considered us breaking up, but we talked it through.  I told him I still wanted to be with him but that I got needing some space and distancing yourself from people when going through tough times.  Bitty realized who I was talking about.  We talked about it.

Parse: talked about how you’re not over me

Jack: Does it matter?

Parse: it does to me.

 

It takes two times typing out his next message and deleting it and typing it out again before Jack can gather up the courage to send it to Parse.  He knows that this is going to mean another day of Serious Calls with Bitty, but if Bitty’s conversation this morning and Bitty’s Twitter are right, Jack thinks that maybe this is something he can say.  Maybe this is something he can finally admit to, to himself and to Parse.  Maybe he doesn’t have to treat this like a slowly fading bruise hidden under his clothes, ugly and uneven and a reminder of pain that mostly should have faded but still aches when he moves the wrong way.

 

Jack: We talked about how I feel a lot of things about you still.

Parse: like love

Jack: We’ve barely talked since the draft.

Parse: but you loved me back

Parse: you loved me back, before the draft

 

Jack takes a deep breath as he types his response.  In some ways, this is a moment he’s been dreading, putting a name to how he felt about Kent.  On the other hand, he’s trying to wrap his head around Kent choosing to say loved me _back_ , saying he loved Jack without having to actually outright say it.

“Yeah,” Jack finally types, “I loved you back.”

He presses send and locks his phone.

It’s 5 AM, and while Jack is used to early mornings, he has to drive back to Providence before too long.  He knows Lardo and Shitty probably wouldn’t mind him sticking around another day (they would probably love it, honestly), but he does have to get back home.  He has a morning and afternoon training session scheduled on Sundays, and while it is the off-season, he knows better than to shirk, especially on strength training sessions early on in the off-season.

He checks his phone and verifies that Kent hasn’t replied yet, though his phone shows that Kent did see the message.  If Jack is going to try to go back to sleep, he only has a half an hour.  It probably isn’t worth trying.  

He doesn’t want to sit there staring at his phone in the dark for that time, though, and at this point he wants all the sleep he can get.

Jack double-checks his alarm settings and sets his phone down, closing his eyes and trying to relax instead of falling into his default hypervigilance, waiting for the faintest sound of a vibration.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The Falconer’s training facility is the ache of Jack’s muscles, the huff of his breath, the sweat dripping down his back.  It’s the whirring of machines and the voices of the trainers and the sound of the music that Jack plays through his earbuds when his trainers aren’t there, the music that Bitty and Tater both chirp him for being dad music.  It’s trying to be present in his workout, focusing on every stretch, every jog, every squat, and embedding himself in the way his body feels, so he knows what is too much and knows when he could push himself harder.  

A lot of the guys have gone home to see their families during this stage of the off-season, or are working with personal trainers outside of the facility.  Jack can hardly blame them; it won’t be too long before he’s hopping on a plane and spending a week in Canada with his parents.  Everyone being home, though, it means that the workout room is pretty quiet.  Jack doesn’t usually mind, because it makes it easier for him to focus, easier to get in the zone.

Today, though, the Falconer’s training facility is a long slog that leaves his body aching and gives his brain too much time to wander.

It doesn’t help that he’s tired going into his workout.  A good workout can wake him and his body up, can get his endorphins rushing and his body alert.  Today, though, he just feels sluggish and distracted, and he can tell that he’s getting some pointed looks for the numbers he’s putting up.  He has his phone on to play music, but he keeps listening carefully for the sound of texts.  He’s trying so hard to keep his head out of whatever the fuck is going on with Kent, but he’s also definitely failing, and he’s pretty sure that if he doesn’t get his head together soon, someone’s going to say something.

“You can break early, go get something to eat,” his trainer tells him ten minutes before the end of his morning session, patting Jack’s shoulder as Jack transitions to cooling down and stretching out.  “Catch a nap if you have time for it, you look dead.”

Jack is just glad that he is reliable and has so few mornings like this that he can get the benefit of the doubt when he does.

He checks his phone all through lunch to see if he’s gotten a response from either Kent or Bitty.  Kent hasn’t said a word since Jack admitted to having loved him.  Jack doesn’t know what Kent was aiming for with the admission, whether it was vindication or closure or… just finally hearing it out loud.  Or by text, rather.  Hearing that Jack could admit to loving him, that his feelings were returned in the first place.  Personally, that part scares Jack more than it gives him any form of closure.  He didn’t want to hear before that Kenny loved him because he knew it would make him feel this way, the tangle of feelings twirling in his gut, anger and loss and self-loathing and wistfulness and want.  He didn’t want to know that hearing how Parse felt about him could still make his pulse race.  He didn’t want to know that they could talk about it like reasonable human beings, with no shouting or passive-aggressive barbs or intention to hurt.

It isn’t particularly reassuring to Jack that Kent hasn’t responded yet, and it does leave him anxiously checking his phone for some sign of a reaction from Kent.  But he sort of wonders if Kent feels just as out in the weeds as Jack does about the whole thing, a little bit lost and a little bit unsure and a lot overwhelmed.

Jack should be less worried about Bitty not responding to his morning text yet.  Bitty hasn’t been sleeping all that well lately, so Jack knows there are some days when Bitty is awake and texting Jack at 7:30 AM and others when Bitty drags himself out of bed around lunch time.  Jack didn’t even text Bitty anything other than good morning, because Jack knows that there’s nothing scarier than waking up to a wall of text about something that’s a sensitive issue in the first place.  Jack does already feel the nerves starting to bubble up about bringing up his conversation with Parse last night, but he knows it’s something he’s going to have to do.  

It just leaves Jack in a weird place, one he isn’t used to.

The Haus was a frat house, and he lived there for three years.  He saw any number of open relationships and he heard any number of discussions about teammates going back and forth because they liked more than one person.  Jack had always kind of tuned it out because the idea of it was weird to him; it just wasn’t something he experienced.  He’s dated people before, and he’s liked people, and he’s had sex.  But when it came to the strong side of feelings, he was certain there was no overlap over time.  There was no one and then there was Kent.  And then there was no one again, and then there was Camilla.  And then there was no one, and then there was the all too abrupt realization of Bitty.  And every day since then has been Bitty, even when they are both busy and are texting each other between classes and practices and flights and press conferences.  

In hindsight, that was probably fooling himself.  Because between Kent and Camilla, even if he wasn’t actively pining over Kent, even if he was more focused on the angry and hurt and conflicted feelings than the romantic ones, Kent was there.  The first Epikegster happened while he was dating Camilla.  Leading up to graduation and things finally blooming with Bitty, Kent was often on Jack’s mind when he was looking at teams and fielding offers and making decisions.  Jack never stopped having strong feelings for Kent.

Now, Jack just has to actually face the fact that both of them know that.

He’s heading out of lunch when his phone finally vibrates.  Jack scrambles to check and see who it is, and when Bitty’s name and a string of messages show up on the lockscreen, Jack unlocks his phone to see.

 

Bitty: Kent Parson DMed me last night on Twitter, and he seemed awful concerned

Bitty: I’m not sure if he was drunk or if he just talks this way

Jack: He probably just talks that way.  I talked to him and he seemed pretty sober.  What did he say?

Bitty: You talked to him????  Honey, I’m proud of you!

Bitty: Though when I said you should talk to that boy I didn’t mean you had to do it right away

Jack: You might not be proud of me when you heard what we talked about.  

Jack: He texted me, anyway.  He texted late last night because he saw your tweets.  He realized they were about him.

Bitty: That would explain why he felt the need to promise he wouldn’t steal my boy

Bitty: even though he wanted to

Jack: Okay, he might have been drunk then.  He couldn’t steal me from you if he tried.

Jack: He told me he loved me before the draft.  I said I loved him back before the draft too.  I didn’t say I love him now.  I’m not sure I do.  I think I could.  I think it’s there.

Bitty: He asked if he could come see you.

Jack: What did you say?

Bitty: That I’m not your keeper

Bitty: But that we’d talked about him.  I said I don’t think it’s a bad thing if y’all feel out where things stand

Bitty: as long as he doesn’t think he’s going to go stealing you from me, because him being Kent Parson doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to share

Jack: I can’t believe he messaged you.

Jack: Did you mean what you said?

Bitty: Of course I did sweetheart

Bitty: You and Kent have history, and you told me you think about him plenty.  

Bitty: I don’t know where this is gonna go any more than you do.  But I trust you, Jack.  I trust you to be honest with me.  

Bitty: I fell in love with you because you had a lot of heart and love and passion, and while I may need reassuring every once in awhile that some of it’s directed at me, I’m not the jealous sort.  I know better than to think you loving him means you love me any less

Bitty: I just want you to be happy, and if that means you getting together Kent Parson again, then that’s alright

 

Reading the text, Jack has to stop.  Because there are moments where Jack looks at his life, and where he is, and can’t help but think about the places.

There’s where he is right then, at the Falconer’s training facility.  There’s the locker room and rink and the ice, the city of Providence and his apartment with the kitchen Bitty approved before Jack moved in.  There’s Cambridge and Boston, the Haus which he only mostly visits for Bitty and his old frogs, now that Bitty is going to be a senior and the people Jack played with have largely graduated.  There’s Quebec, and Montreal, and his childhood home.  Jack can think of all those places and he _feels_  them, feel the moments he was happy and the moments he was anxious and the moments he was afraid.  He feels the best of each of them and the worst, the small details Jack only noticed because he was looking for them and the quiet and understated moments that on paper didn’t mean anything but that were everything to Jack.

Jack likes to think he doesn’t make homes out of people anymore.  Jack likes to think that he learned his lesson with KentKennyParse.  Jack likes to think that he’s come to a quiet sort of peace with the fact that no one will be in his life forever, and that maybe that’s okay, that maybe he’ll survive as long as he doesn’t build his life around the presence and the wellbeing of one single person.  And he knows that right now he isn’t.  He has his family, who he lets in a way he didn’t and he should’ve back in the Q.  He has his Falconers team, who is starting to accept him and appreciate him and grow on him.  He has his old Samwell team, mostly Shitty and Lardo but also Ransom and Holster and Chowder and Dex and Nursey and sometimes even Johnson.

But the way Jack thinks about Bitty can’t not be a place unto itself.  

Bitty is warm.  Even Jack’s photography class noticed that that was the way Jack felt him most, in photo after photo after photo, before Jack even knew that that was what he was trying to capture.  Bitty is warmth to his core, hot pies fresh out of the oven and casual reassuring touch and soft smiles that single handedly cut through whatever exhaustion and fatigue and restlessness Jack is feeling.  Bitty is spooning under just a sheet when their skin is too sweaty and sticky for the rest of the blankets to go on top, is the feeling of gentle hands pressed against Jack’s bare skin, is soft lips against his own and a small, solid body on top of him, inside him, around him.  Bitty is expressive, warm brown eyes hidden only because Jack is getting to make Bitty feel good, too.  

Bitty is laughter that Jack didn’t hear when Bitty was a tiny frog but that fills up spaces, now, like Bitty’s finally realized that it’s allowed to around Jack, that Jack is safe.  Bitty is the cool breeze from Jack peeling off his jacket or sticking his hands in his pockets gloveless, and Jack knows it is because Bitty is from Madison, Georgia, and always underestimates the New England winters that drag on for months, but in his head, Jack likes to think it’s because Bitty from Madison, Georgia seems to forget he can’t heat up the world with the force of his warmth and goodness and light almost as much as Jack forgets it himself.

Jack knows better, this time, than to fragment Bitty into pieces, or to treat Bitty as anything less than a whole human being with flaws.  Bitty is booting up his phone while getting off the plane in the pouring rain and checking his messages, messages that made Jack’s heart wrench because he didn’t know, because Bitty never told him he was hurting so much.  Bitty is shoulders tensing, the sight of someone who is already small shrinking into himself and then pasting a smile on his face, like everything is okay (or like if he says everything is okay enough times then everyone will believe him).  Bitty is the smell of strawberry tarts at midnight and bags under soft brown eyes, and Jack not being sure if it’s Bitty’s own worries keeping him up or if it’s others’, because Bitty seems to shoulder everyone’s concerns like they were his in the first place.

In spite of all that, or maybe because of it, Jack loves Bitty, and Bitty is his own kind of place for Jack, another kind of home.  Bitty is knowing that Jack is loved and appreciated, in a way that is so big and fond and loud that Jack almost singlehandedly funded the Haus’ new washer from Sin Bin fines.  Bitty is the first text he sends almost every day, and often the last text he sends at night.  Bitty is renewal, is realizing that he can be good for someone and that there are people worth taking chances on.  Bitty is staring down the ugliest parts of Jack’s history and not dismissing them or explaining them away but forgiving them, is letting them be part of Jack without them being all of Jack.

And Bitty is this.  Bitty is looking at Jack and seeing him not as a hockey robot but as full of love.  Bitty is bravery in the face of insecurity, is being selfless where Jack isn’t sure he could do the same.  Is giving Jack permission to talk to and see and maybe (probably) even love someone, just because Bitty realizes that, even with all of Jack’s mixed feelings about Kent Parson, it’s something that Jack wants.

 

Jack: You never have to worry about me telling you I love you and want you.  I will every day.  You think I’m full of love, but that’s only because you haven’t met you.

Jack: I don’t know what I’m going to do about Parse yet.  You can trust that I’ll be honest with you about it when I figure it out.  You have to be honest too, though.  If you decide at any point that you changed your mind and aren’t comfortable with something, even if it’s something small that you think might not be important, I want you to tell me.

Jack: Kent is not a given for me.  I knew things with Kent in the Q were temporary.  You aren’t temporary to me.

Bitty: Lord, Jack, it’s only noon and you already have me crying today

Bitty: I’ll do my best though

Bitty: We’ll both do our best

Jack: We will.  

Jack: My trainer told me have to take a nap before going back to work.  I didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m going to try to find someplace quiet now.  I love you.  Skype at 7:30 tonight?

Bitty: Of course, honey

Bitty: Sleep well <333333333

Bitty: I love you too

 

Jack gets approval from the massage therapist to nap for a little on one of the tables, since no one is scheduled in that day.

After having talked to Bitty, he falls asleep pretty quickly after all, and he times his alarm carefully so he wakes up refreshed and ready to go for his afternoon session.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Montreal was home.  Montreal was the house in the suburbs where Jack was raised.  Montreal was learning hockey with his dad and Uncle Wayne and Uncle Mario, was telling his dad for the first time that he wanted to be a hockey star just like him.  Montreal was being one of the only kids on his team in the Q who wasn’t living with a billet family, but with his own family, and while it should’ve grounded Jack, should’ve given him the advantage of being in a familiar place with familiar people he loves, it just gave him another reason to feel different than everyone else.

Montreal was all the worst parts of the Q, the anxiety and the overdose and the news from the hospital playing on repeat that Kent was drafted to the Aces.  Montreal was the hard and painful process of rehab.  But Montreal was also Jack seeing his first therapist and crying during the intake session after talking about anger and confusion and shame and hurt and disappointment and all these feelings he’d been burying under, alternately, numbness and terror.  Montreal was talking to his family and spilling everything and them still wanting to pull him close, still being that comforting French when his chest ached and when his hands wouldn’t still.  Montreal was rebuilding his life and feeling like he failed for most of it, but still moving forward with a plan, a plan for his career and a plan for getting better.

Most importantly, Montreal was the tiny ice rink where he first dared to put on his skates again, not for himself, but for a peewee team full of 11-year-old and 12-year-old kids.

Jack still keeps in touch with a bunch of the kids he coached.  They get excited about his Falconer’s games.  Some of them are in the Q now, or are playing on other junior hockey teams, and Jack gets excited about their games too.  A few of them sort of knew who he was, then, that he was Bad Bob’s son, but mostly he got to be Coach Z, and being taken at face value was something he clung to back then.

Now that Jack is in the NHL, that’s a little bit different.  He is busy, and his off-season training doesn’t involve a lot of ice time this early on, so he doesn’t coach peewee teams for a whole season or help run summer camps the way he would like.  Jack does other charity work, especially with mental health organizations and LGBTQ+ organizations, because they’re important to him.  But he does always make sure to swing by that tiny little rink in Montreal at least once every time he’s home.  He gets excited about it, and he usually gets to spend the day with the kids, who seem to enjoy it, too.  Now that his name means something in its own right, he coordinates it formally with the rink so there aren’t any surprises.  

Naturally, this year, there are surprises.

Jack is excited when to fly home and spend a week with his parents, and Bitty makes sure he is sending Jack with his love (and with multiple pies).  Jack provides his trainers with the reassurances they need that Bad Bob Zimmermann is going to understand Jack needing to take time out of family time to get at least _some_  workouts in.  Jack packs based on what he thinks he still has in his room in Quebec, clothes-wise and pads-wise, though he doesn’t drag his mother into the process like Bitty suggests.  Jack confirms the dates he’ll be in town and clears his plans with the ice rink, and everything is set.

He responds to most of his messages before he heads onto his flight.  There are some from Bitty and his mom and Shitty, and a few from Kent, because they’re texting now, apparently.  It’s usually little things, daily workout stats or Netflix recommendations or trying to convince Jack to get a pet for his apartment.  They haven’t talked about the love conversation yet, but it feels like being friends again, and Jack likes it.  Jack shares all of Kit Purrson’s selfies with Bitty, who seems to appreciate them more than Jack does.

Today’s morning texts from Kent, however, are more than a little bit cryptic.

 

Parse: give mr. and mrs. z hugs from me

Parse: really big hugs

Parse: i’d say tell them hello for me but…

 

By the time Jack lands in Montreal, there is still nothing to complete the sentence, and when Jack asks, Parse just sends a winky face emoji.

Jack settles back into life at home pretty quickly.  He and his dad cook together, catered to Jack’s nutrition plan, and they have family meals and family movie nights.  Jack goes to an art gallery with his mom and talks about photography with her all the way home, because Jack may have the biggest overt similarity with his dad in hockey, but he is his mother’s son in as many smaller ways, too.

“We have a guest coming tomorrow,” his mother tells him, and Jack expects that it will probably be one of his mom’s or dad’s friends, a hockey legend or a famous actor or model.  

“I’m going to be with the kids tomorrow, but I should be home for dinner,” Jack promises.

“When will you be over there?” Jack’s dad asks.  

“8:30 to 5, we’re doing a morning session and an afternoon session,” Jack says.  “Do you need any help getting the house ready for the guest?”

“Don’t worry about it, Jack,” his mother says, smiling, and that’s honestly the first moment when Jack should be suspicious.  

Or maybe the second.

Jack’s really off his game, though, just glad to be home and excited to go work with the kids.  He helps clean up after dinner and packs for tomorrow morning, making sure he has everything he needs in his bag, including a sharpie Bitty reminds him to tuck in for when he inevitably gets the kids asking him to sign their helmets or their sticks.    

He works out a little bit before bed, because he knows he won’t get quite the workout he’ll need tomorrow, especially if there’s a guest coming.  But he grabs a shower, says goodnight to his parents, and Skypes with Bitty before heading off early, so he’s sure he has the energy he needs for the next day.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

After the draft, the ice rink was children laughing, their voices small and their giggles loud, their tiny helmets with their tiny visors on their tiny heads.  The ice rink was skating on only half the rink sometimes, because it was a community rink and they were sharing with other teams, some of which were more willing to end the practices with scrimmages than others.  The ice rink was Jack learning to work with kids who didn’t know him and who were just old enough not to be impressed by him until he gave them a reason to be, through his hockey ability and his patience and his understanding, his alternate captain skills translating surprisingly well to coaching.  The ice rink was skating and feeling like it had a purpose again, was drowning out the feelings of failure with the sight of kids grinning as they toppled over trying out a group celly.  

Now, the ice rink is getting to swoop in and have a little bit of fun and brighten some kids’ days.  It’s running drills, seeing tiny goalies light up when they block a shot that _Jack Zimmermann_  took.  It’s working with kids of every skill level, from the tiny ones who are still a little wobbly on their skates to the kids who approach Jack to ask if he was scared when he first played in a checking league, too.  It’s taking selfies and posing for pictures and signing things a lot, which Jack tends to enjoy less, but that he knows is every bit as important to the kids as the playing hockey is.  It’s humbling, but it also makes Jack’s heart grow three sizes when kids skate up to him to earnestly tell him that he’s their favorite, or that he’s a good example, or that they have a sister with anxiety who decided she could play hockey too because of him, or that they have a friend who stopped using homophobic slurs after seeing Jack’s You Can Play video.  

It’s, best of all, the kids who have personal stories themselves.  Jack is sending everyone off to the benches to take the last break of the afternoon when one of the older boys boldly skates up to him and gives him a hug.  He tells Jack that he thinks he might like girls AND boys, and that it’s scary, and that his team doesn’t know, but that people like Jack standing up for people like him give him hope.  It takes everything in Jack not to lean down and whisper to the kid that he knows that feeling, that he felt it every single day in the juniors and most of college hockey.  He wants to tell the kid that things get better, that he’s out to more of his team in the NHL than he was when he was the boy’s age, that the world is a better place for LGBTQ+ players than it ever has been before, even if the hockey world and the established teams aren’t always so safe.  Instead he holds the kid close and tells him that it’s hard, but that he is so, so brave, that he should be safe, but that if he does come out to his team, then Jack Zimmermann has his back.

It’s Jack signing a rainbow patch for him or his parents to sew onto his jersey.  He knows it’s not enough, but it’s something, and until the day when Jack is out to everyone, it’s what he can do.

It’s the boy hugging him again, clinging for just a moment until there’s shouting from the benches, Jack looking up to see if he has to break up a fight and instead finding a shock of blonde hair peeking out from under a now-familiar snapback, a pair of skates and an Aces sweater and a shit-eating grin.  It’s the kids all lighting up, because they expected one NHL player but not two, especially not these two.

“I didn’t know you guys were still friends,” the boy tells Jack as he finally lets go.  “On TV they say you guys hate each other.”

“We don’t see each other much,” Jack tells him, honest with the kid who has been so honest with him.  “But we’re something like friends, right, Parse?” Jack says, louder this time, so Kent can hear him across the ice.  “Definitely don’t hate each other.  Most of the time, at least,” he jokes.

“I don’t know, Jack, I used to room with you on roadies back in the Q, I used to hate you sometimes then.”  Kent leans down and whispers loudly enough for all the kids to hear.  “Jack Zimmermann _snores_ , tell all your friends.”

“Kent Parson never packs enough clean socks,” Jack tells them all, because two can play this game.  The kids giggle and chime in, and Jack

Jack looks at Kent, and he’s glad that Kent gave the kids something to titter about, because he hopes that no one’s looking at him.  It would be a relief, because Jack doesn’t know what he looks like right now, is taken back to those moments when he stared at Kent and he wasn’t sure if he was giving away the world on his face, in his body, in his voice.  Because Kent Parson flew back up to Montreal to see him, and _now_  Jack knows that he should’ve seen it coming, that there was Kent’s talk with Bitty and Kent’s hints about seeing Jack’s parents and his dad’s questions and his mom’s mysterious guest (and even when Jack and Kent weren’t talking, Jack’s parents were like Kent’s second parents, so of course Jack’s mom and dad would offer to put him up while he was in the city now that they know Jack and Kent _are_  talking again).  

Kent Parson is shoulders curled in on themselves and hands in pockets, is looking small wearing his giant gameplay Ace’s sweater but no pads underneath.  Kent Parson is that cowlick that Jack still has the urge to reach out and touch, to tuck under Kent’s snapback because Kent can never manage to position it just right on his own, he always gets frustrated and gives up.  Kent Parson is eyes looking more blue than green or grey, open and hopeful in spite of his guarded posture, because this is as big of a risk as Kent can take, showing up at the rink and helping with the kids and going home to Jack’s house to have dinner with his family just like he used to in the Q, and Jack isn’t turning him away, wouldn’t have even if the kids weren’t there.  

Kent Parson is going through the process of signing things for the kids again, is passing out fistbumps and high fives and then ushering the kids back off the benches.  Kent Parson is being on the same team again for the briefest of moments, is ice time led by both of them, together, and is the eerie feeling of cracked edges sliding back together just right.

“I hope you don’t mind that I crashed your gig,” Kent says when the kids are gone and the ice rink is locked up.  Kent takes Jack out to the parking lot, where Jack’s dad’s car is.  “Your mom said you were Ubering while you were still in town, so she gave me the keys and hinted that you could use a ride.  She wasn’t very subtle about it.”

“She’s been talking to Bitty,” Jack says, and he’s shooting for exasperated but he’s pretty sure it comes out fond.  “How long are you in town?”

“As long as you,” Kent says, unlocking the car and popping the trunk to put their bags away.  “I’m doing a few days down here and then swinging back down to New York to see the fam.  My mom says I should’ve dragged you with me, but I told her not to get her hopes up just yet.”

“Just yet?” Jack asks, chirping.  “You seem pretty confident there, Parse.”

“I’m not,” Kent says.  He looks Jack in the eyes, and the honesty of it is almost disarming.  “It’s taken us this long to be in one place without anything going wrong.  Yet.  I’m not confident at all.  But I’m putting everything out here, because I’ve always been better at that than you.  So I’m willing to take a chance and fly up to Canada and watch your dad’s terrible French-Canadian movies and hope my nutritionist never finds out about me taking a few nights off and drinking with your mother and… take a few days with you.  We can work out together and post pictures to Twitter, Bitty will cry.”

“I should text him that you’re here,” Jack says.  

“He already knows.  I checked with him to make sure it wasn’t a terrible idea before I bought the tickets.  We’ve exchanged phone numbers now and everything,” Kent replies.

It reassures Jack, though Jack still shoots Bitty a text letting him know that Kent has arrived and no one is dead or shouting yet.  Jack and Kent get in the car, and Jack turns the A/C on.  Jack lets Kent fiddle with the radio, Kent beaming triumphantly when he remembers his favorite station from when he was in the Q, and when he discovers that it hasn’t changed.  

“We should,” Jack says as Kent bops along to the pop song on the radio.  “Put workout pictures on Twitter.  We can’t tag Bitty in them, but he will cry.”

“Shit, I might cry,” Kent says, grinning.  “You’re a lot more muscle than you were back when we were 17.  Your numbers and my numbers are pretty different, now.”

Jack snorts.  “Don’t act like you’re not more muscle than back in the Q, too.  You don’t have to fish that hard for compliments, we both know better than that.”

“Maybe I just want them from you,” Kent says, and, well.

Jack can’t argue with that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Kent Parson isn’t home.  Not yet.  But Jack suspects he will be.  Especially since Jack knows that he is capable of doing things right, this time, that he can take things one step at a time and learn Kent Parson as a whole instead of in pieces.

Kent Parson is absolutely sitting through the terrible old French-Canadian movies that Jack’s dad loves but the rest of them tolerate, and is Kent and Jack’s mom polishing off a bottle of wine.  Kent Parson is absolutely tweeting a photo of Jack and Kent working out shirtless together, and Kent Parson is absolutely receiving some of those key smash messages that Bitty sends when he’s all worked up (and some much more coherent and pleasantly surprised messages from his social media person).  

But Kent Parson is also a warm body next to Jack on his bed, bigger than Jack’s used to these days, and bigger than Jack was used to the last time he shared that bed in his childhood home with another person.  With this same person, who is now sprawled out with his head on Jack’s pillow and with points of contact against Jack’s body that Jack can’t help but be acutely aware of, but that neither of them tries to push into something more.  Kent Parson is talking, actually talking, like fucking adults who have had years to process their shit, instead of like 17-year-old boys who were hurt and scared and angry and lost.  Kent Parson is letting himself be honest instead of hiding, a sort of catharsis that Jack didn’t know he needed, but that Kent clearly knew he did.

Kent Parson is Kent and Kenny and Parse, is not erasing anything that’s happened, but is opening up a new page.  Kent Parson is talking about their teammates without aching, is being okay with living in different cities and playing on different teams.  Kent Parson is talking about how both of them watch Chopped when they can’t sleep and is leading into conversations about distance and open relationships and Bitty.  Kent Parson is the two of them Skyping Bitty together, the night before they both leave, so Bitty can chirp them and fret a little but mostly feel vindicated about the fact that he was right about them talking maybe being a good thing.

Kent Parson is exchanging Skype usernames and hugging Jack’s parents goodbye and packing up their bags.  And Kent Parson is Jack’s hands shaking as he texts Bitty while Kent’s going to the bathroom one last time before they head to the airport together.

Kent Parson is reading, “Of course, honey,” on the screen of his phone and steeling himself, is calling Kent over and them sitting next to each other on the bed they spent hours in together, a world ago.  Kent Parson is butterflies in Jack’s stomach and is getting distracted and nervous and nearly chickening out over the littlest things, the way Kent’s shoulders are broader and the way he’s switched colognes or aftershaves or whatever the scent is that he’s wearing.  Kent Parson is pushing through it all, is the leaning in that Kent Parson finishes, is the taste of a familiar mouth and the press of familiar lips and Jack’s stomach flipping because Kent Parson may not be home yet, but his body is, because kissing him again is new, but is also so instinctual even after all this time that Jack doesn’t have to think.

Kent Parson is getting into a cab and hugging at the airport, even though they know that someone is bound to be snapping a picture of it.  Kent Parson is promising to text and to Skype and meaning it, because they aren’t going to be living in each other’s pockets anymore, and doing this right is going to take some work.

But Jack thinks that they’re both, finally, in a place where they are willing to put in some work, and when he watches Kent Parson walk away from him towards his gate, Jack Zimmermann feels warm and hopeful.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](https://polyamorousparson.tumblr.com/).


End file.
